Things got very funny on CNN on Tuesday, March 11, when CNN’s Brianna Keilar went on the attack against Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN) over Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, as Mr. Musk has said that eliminating fraud could mean spending up to $700 billion less on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, which she lied and claimed meant he would unfairly cut the programs. Rep. Burchett hammered her in response, humiliating her on her own show.
Keilar, kicking things off by lying about what the $700 billion number shows, said, “This number, it’s very big. And you know the sensitivities around tackling entitlement cuts, but any experts …” Interrupting and firing back, Rep. Burchett told her, “Ma’am, but you have to ask yourself, why are these people so opposed to finding waste, abuse, and fraud in these departments because the money would get back to the people in need?”
Snapping at him with obvious fury, Keiler almost shouted, “I’m not done. That’s not the question. I didn’t finish, I didn’t finish my question!” She then, speaking over him as he tried to finish his point, snapped at Burchett that experts said, “‘You can’t get that number of the cuts that he’s talking about.”
Continuing, the angry CNN host claimed, “They say, ‘You can’t balance the budget, which is obviously something Republicans really want to do, without being honest about cutting these entitlements.’ And yet it seems something that Republicans are are reticent to speak honestly about that that’s what would have to be done.”
Rep. Burchett told her, “You’re asking the people that created the problem, did they make a mistake? And of course they’re going to tell you, ‘No, we didn’t make a mistake, this is crazy.’ Well, nobody imagined any of these millions and billions of dollars that are going out.” She snapped back, “I think these are people who are actually interested in reducing some of these estimates, these are people who are interested in being fiscally conservative.”
Not putting up with Keilar’s lies about Mr. Musk and his attempts to destroy waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government’s spending through data analysis conducted by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that he leads, Rep. Burchett totally sounded off on her and raked her claims over the coal.
Demanding an answer as to why the Democrats are freaking out about Elon’s attempts to shut down federal government fraud, Elon said, “Then why don’t they? Why don’t they embrace the idea of exposing these things? Why do they want to demonize Trump and Elon Musk? If Elon Musk says that he thinks he could find $1 trillion worth of waste, abuse and fraud, why don’t we let him try that?”
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Continuing, he noted that Elon and DOGE have already exposed that a vast amount of federal money is flowing to Establishment politicians, a claim he made on Fox Business as well, saying, “The problem is, is that this money is you’re going to see it going to…NGO’s and all these organizations that claim they’re doing a good job, and it’s coming right back to Washington and possibly both parties.”
He then said, noting that corrupt politicians and other fraudsters need to face the consequences and find themselves in handcuffs, saying, “And I think that’s what a lot of these people are afraid of. They’re going to get caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And some of these people need to be in handcuffs.”
Watch the angry back and forth here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video